Granada Reports

Collectively they do. Look at the ratings for a peak time programme now compared with 20 years ago. And it's not just competition from TV channels, the Internet is taking away audience and revenue.



That was always the case, there were always shareholders to pay.

Regional content wasn't that financially viable even in the days of 4 channels, it was part of a public service remit enforced by a regulator. Most of the ITV companies would have been quite happy to just show big populist shows if they could

Sorry but I don't accept that argument whatsoever. The excellent regional content on Granada wasn't a result of them being forced to do it - it was made with passion and pride by people who wanted to provide the best service they could. They certainly did a lot more than other regions. To suggest that it was something they did but didn't really want to do is an insult to those involved in it.

I'm sure the people involved wanted to do them and did them with passion but... that doesn't mean they were viable or necessarily popular. Granada's bigger passion was selling the north to the rest of the country, something they were very good at


Also would they have had the opportunity to make the programmes had the requirement for regional output not existed? Of course some regional output, the less worthy stuff at least, was essentially a pilot for a network slot, or it turned out to be

It's well known that several of the ITV companies would have preferred just to make and put out populist stuff - ATV, Tyne Tees, LWT being the ones that spring to mind. Remember the Bernstiens were entertainment people. It was a company whose background was entertainment

Well, I think we *can* agree that Granada didn't care *quite* so much about their region after Gerry Robinson and Charles Allen arrived on the scene.

Didn't Robinson also consider adopting Carlton's publisher-broadcaster model?

It's a good book though some parts of it were unbearably bitter and there are parts of it where I think he lets that cloud his judgement a bit.

Also worth remembering the market was very different there and sometimes regional content got made as it was a place to test content which could then potentially be sold to a wider market, whilst back in the 80s and early 90s the ITV regions were the main producers in the market, with very few opportunities outside of the network to sell on their content. In danger of straying way off topic here but did any ITV regions regularly produce content for other individual regions back then, if that was even allowed?

Thames produced the Friday evening news bulletin for LWT until the late 80s when the LWT franchise started earlier.

For a while, after the Belmont transmitter was reallocated from Anglia to Yorkshire, there was a "Belmont weather forecast" sub opt transmitted as part of Calendar, pre-recorded by Anglia.

Didn't Tyne Tees lend/rent their colour OB truck to Border, to use at Border as a 'drive in' to record Mr and Mrs ?

December 1987. For ref 😄

Wasn't 'Night Thoughts' an unbranded Thames production, that was shown 7 nights a week on Thames and LWT ?

Yes, but combined, the extra channels are more than enough to have an effect on ITV's rating numbers and ad revenue.

I think the local channels on Freeview are helping satisfy the demand for local output.